Our first post on Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” hits most of the key points, though there are a few more errors in the book that we hope to expand upon in future posts.

But for those of you uninterested in buying and reading the book, you can actually find a similar-minded opinion piece by Crichton criticizing climate science (and everything from SETI and the “Drake Equation” to Carl Sagan in the process) here in the public domain.

In a departure from normal practice on this site, this post is a commentary on a piece of out-and-out fiction (unlike most of the other posts which deal with a more subtle kind). Michael Crichton’s new novel “State of Fear” is about a self-important NGO hyping the science of the global warming to further the ends of evil eco-terrorists. The inevitable conclusion of the book is that global warming is a non-problem. A lesson for our times maybe? Unfortunately, I think not.

by Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt
As highlighted in the introduction to the site, we seek to clarify the findings of scientists who study the earth’s climate, and have an informed view on the science of climate change. Additionally we will speak out where we feel that the public discourse surrounding the science is being detrimentally impacted by the shrill voices and disinformation campaigns of the “partisan think-tanks or other interested parties”.

Climate science is one of those fields where anyone, regardless of their lack of expertise or understanding, feels qualified to comment on new papers and ongoing controversies. This can be frustrating for scientists like ourselves who see agenda-driven ‘commentary’ on the Internet and in the opinion columns of newspapers crowding out careful analysis.

Comments are moderated. Comments are periodically reviewed, but especially at weekends, evenings and holidays, there may be some delay in approving otherwise non-contentious posts. Please be patient.

Questions, clarifications and serious rebuttals and discussions are welcomed.

Only comments that are germane to the post will be approved. Comments that are “off-topic” should be made on an open thread (usually entitled “Unforced Variations”), and we may move OT comments to those threads.

Comments that contain links to inappropriate, irrelevant or commercial sites may be deleted.

Discussion of non-scientific subjects is discouraged.

No flames, profanity, ad hominem comments are allowed. This includes comments that (explicitly or implicitly) impugn the motives of others, or which otherwise try to personalize matters under discussion.

We reserve the right to make spelling corrections, correct text format problems, etc.

We use moderation to improve the “signal to noise” in the discussion. For this reason, we may choose to screen out comments that simply repeat points made in previous comments, make claims that have already been dealt with or that “muddy the water” by introducing erroneous, specious, or otherwise misleading assertions. These comments may be sent to “The Bore Hole“.

We reserve the right to either reject comments that do not meet the above criteria, or in certain cases to edit them in a manner that brings them into accordance with our comments policy (e.g. by simply deleting inflammatory or ad hominem language from an otherwise worthy comment). In cases where we do this, it will be noted by an [edit].

Given that RealClimate represents a volunteer effort by about 10 different contributors, each of whom are free to participate in queue moderation, the items indicated above only constitute the basic ground rules. We cannot insure uniform application of the various considerations listed above from one individual comment to the next.

Quick responses to questions that don’t merit a full post will be placed in-line (with credits).

All comments are assumed to be released into the public domain.

Comments generally close after a month.

Repeat violators of our comments policy (in particular, individuals demonstrating a pattern of “trolling”) may be barred from future access to the blog.